Some Hope On Spying

A new report says every member of the Senate intelligence oversight committee is a big recipient of intel-industry contributions. All this time I've been wondering of they are targets of blackmail over problems discovered by intel-abuse.  Would it not be wonderful if that is to true, the reason these people are betraying us is strictly small time personal corruption.  Straight bribery?  My faith in government would be restored!

But I doubt it.  It is probably both.  Blackmail and bribery.

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Joy of Gospel Part Five

Continuing with paragraph 56 from yesterday, I paused because there is a line I find particularly interesting.

Debt and the accumulation of interest also make it difficult for countries to realize the potential of their own economies and keep citizens from enjoying their real purchasing power. To all this we can add widespread corruption and self-serving tax evasion, which have taken on worldwide dimensions. The thirst for power and possessions knows no limits. In this system, which tends to devour everything which stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a deified market, which become the only rule.

Here this Pope has opened up, or reopened the discussion of usury, using the common term today, interest.  This Apostolic Exhortation is a run down on what he plans to work on for his papacy.  He got pretty specific here, debt and interest keeping people from enjoying their real purchasing power.  Again, just so.  And if so, then what?  I wonder what, if anything, more he will have to say on this.  If you think what he has said so far will has chaffed the right wingers, wait until he challenges usury, commonly known and practiced today as charging interest, something still strictly forbidden by the Catholic Church, with the most dire threats.

Most international trade is about tax evasion and money laundering.  These lawless supranationals get rules written for their benefit, and then exploit them, and they are lawless for the corruption of the State actors who bring violence to protect them.  And yes, there is no logical limit to the damage they do.

And yes, the environment is defenseless before these lawless entities, who show no regard for property rights.  And he using the term deified market, again, not the free market.  The free market recognizes itself as merely a clearing house of goods and services, certainly not a god.

In the context of politics grounded in ethics and proceeding from submitting to God, the Pope says:

58. A financial reform open to such ethical considerations would require a vigorous change of approach on the part of political leaders.

Now, there is trouble.  I wanted to laugh out loud reading that, but he is not kidding.  This reminds me of the Church teaching on just war and just cause for war.  After reading it, you realize, well, gee whiz, there is no such thing as a just war or a just cause in the real world.  Exactly!

And there will never be a reform of political leaders, nor any effort, vigorous or otherwise to change approach. One requirement to get in office is inability to change approach.  The very vesting of power in individuals is directly contradictory to the express will of God. And after that contradictions, when God gave israel what they wanted, their kings proved relentlessly horrible, even David and Solomon.  Read it for yourself.

So what is this about?  The Pope is not naive, and I suppose there is something to expectations, and that certainly some good will come from some expectation that people behave themselves.  I like the Hong Kong approach better: people are the same everywhere, anyone who gathers power will be corrupt in that measure, therefore, don't give anyone power.  Almost anything government can do, a free market can provide, and that which a free market cannot provide, neither can a government.

Now...

Today’s economic mechanisms promote inordinate consumption, yet it is evident that unbridled consumerism combined with inequality proves doubly damaging to the social fabric. Inequality eventually engenders a violence which recourse to arms cannot and never will be able to resolve.

He can only be talking about usury, which allows you to buy today something you do not need and charge it off to your kids later.  Is he going to expand on this in the coming years?

It serves only to offer false hopes to those clamouring for heightened security, even though nowadays we know that weapons and violence, rather than providing solutions, create new and more serious conflicts.

Wow, how long have I been complaining about people clamoring for security, to be abused?

Some simply content themselves with blaming the poor and the poorer countries themselves for their troubles; indulging in unwarranted generalizations, they claim that the solution is an “education” that would tranquilize them, making them tame and harmless. All this becomes even more exasperating for the marginalized in the light of the widespread and deeply rooted corruption found in many countries – in their governments, businesses and institutions – whatever the political ideology of their leaders.

Yes, Darwin provides a comprehensive cover to explain why some countries are poor, and it then allows those responsible for the poverty to discharge and responsibility. And given the hopeful things said above about change of approach by politicians, I do wonder how he expects this to improve.

He has left all of this open ended, except for advising submission to God, but I expect he will expand on this in time.

All for today...

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Anti-IPR Gets a Wider Hearing

Well an article I co-wrote got published!

American-made products can be successfully and cost-effectively sold into emerging markets using this search-and-learn strategy to turn your intellectual property into a competitive edge.

Making progress when highly technical industries want to hear an alternative....

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Strange North Korea Goings On

If it is true that Jang Song-thaek was close to the Chinese, then his execution is a strange thing.  The report is strangely Stalinesque.

More information comes form Australia:

Mr Jang had visited China on a number of occasions and had been considered the most important advocate of the Chinese style of economic overhaul that the government in Beijing has been urging North Korea to embrace.
At 67, Jang is of the same generation as China's leaders. Unlike the 30-year-old Kim - who has not been to China and who remains a mystery despite the lineage to his grandfather, North Korea's revolutionary founder, Kim Il-sung - Mr Jang was seen by Beijing as a steady hand and a trusted conduit into North Korea's top leadership. He was one of China's few high-level North Korean interlocutors.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make in life is to believe your own PR.  The boy may think he is all he is told he is, and that he does not need China.  China may be carefully working out a change in North Korea.

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Joy of the Gospel, Part 4

This Pope has people coming out of the woodwork to attack his letter.  Even the redoubtable Mises Institute is hosting a guest contributor who plainly misreads the notorious paragraph and then sets about demolishing a straw man argument.  Here is the quote in question

...trickle-down theories, which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. 

Here is the original complete sentence...

54. In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. 

and here is his argument...

However, the criticism of free markets is clear and presents a difficult challenge to suggest that the document does not refer, indeed, to free markets after arguing for “semantic nuances.” ... the Pope inserts a negative bias against the free market; a neutral term would been a better choice of words. 

Well, no, there is criticism of trickle-down theories.  Not the free market.  Bad theories always look for a solid basis to build upon.  Socialism is based on worker ownership of the means of production.  Good idea.  Capitalism is based on power in accumulated means of production.  Proven.  It's when prescriptions come in that things get very un-free market.  The language is plain: the Pope is criticizing supply-side economics, which is clearly NOT free market, and supply-side economics does indeed ground it's pedigree in free markets.  So this statement by the Pope is unremarkable.  The controversy is introduced by people mischaracterizing what the Pope plainly says.

And WSJ editor Jude Wanniski, supply side champion, and I exchanged emails on trickle-down, where I pressed him in detail.  His plan was the government would simply watch the price of gold, at some arbitrarily set price, and sell as the price drifted up, and buy as it drifted down, thus controlling the whole economy.  And to his mind, this was essentially a free market, certainly based on the free market.  Never mind he envisioned the state controlling all by controlling one price.  A theory encouraged by the free market, but certainly not the free market.

And then the critic goes on to build a case about another statement the Pope made about poor people in rich countries suffering more than poor people in poor countries.  I did not finish the article simply because I've seen poor people in both places, and for reason that have nothing to do with numbers, poor people in rich countries are far more wretched than in poor countries.  Rich countries have the money to run human subject trials on poor populations in their countries, and they do.  Look at obesity, ignorance, drug proliferation, violence.  I'd much rather be poor in the Philippines or India than USA.  (Although USA is certainly the best place to be rich.)

I took apart Judge Napolitano's tendentious reading of this paragraph here, but it will do good to add the next sentence to that which the fellow above criticizes:

This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting. 

So what is the Pope saying?  Trusting those who wield economic power to do the right thing is delusional?  Who can disagree with that?  In a free market there is no one wielding economic power, since free markets militate against the concentration of power one sees in capitalism, a system that depends expressly on concentration of power. There is nothing here to alarm anyone who admires free markets.  In the measure one's pretenses are based on reference to a free market, this letter exposes those liars.  Whole lotta objecting going on.

To continue my reading... and another sentence from that very paragraph:

Almost without being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else’s responsibility and not our own. The culture of prosperity deadens us; we are thrilled if the market offers us something new to purchase. In the meantime all those lives stunted for lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle; they fail to move us.

I should be alarmed that the Pope seems to be criticising competing on design, wrapped in talk of the poor.  But he is not talking about an economic system that results in new and better solutions to current problems, and the opportunity and wealth derived therefrom, he is talking about things people are thrilled to have something new to purchase, for its ability to distract from life.  Those things that keep us from caring about others....

Something like this:

SAN FRANCISCO – When a California college student was shot dead by a stranger on a crowded commuter train in San Francisco last month, none of the dozens of passengers on board saw it coming - they were too absorbed in their mobile devices, officials said on Wednesday.

A crowded train, a nut waving a gun around, no one noticed.  Films show he did the night before too, no one noticed.  Mass transit is ideal for criminals.  I am glad I like to people-watch.  People are thrilled to have something that so closes us off to others.

The argument the Pope is making is we have a system that crowds out a lot of productive people, and then distracts us from caring. I could not agree more.  I love studying architecture.  People of African heritage are largely excluded from the field in the USA.  I regret they are not competing with everyone else, and showing what they have.  That is just one example of the hard and fast outrages in our economic system.  Another is "get big or get out."  But we all love a system that works for us, so never expect change from those who benefit from the system.

What strikes me as interesting is no one seems to be attacking this point:

While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few. This imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation. Consequently, they reject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, to exercise any form of control. A new tyranny is thus born, invisible and often virtual, which unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules.

"Absolute autonomy of the market" and the right of states "to exercise any form of control." Well, that the gap is widening is not controversial.  That this is the result of ideologies and financial speculation is not controversial.  That we have a system in which the regulated capture the regulators is not controversial (that they do is controversial, but the fact that they do is well known.)  That this makes for a de facto lawlessness, and supra-national entities beyond the reach of states is also well known.  It is a form of tyranny.  When questioned by those who say such entities should be controlled by those charged with vigilance for the common good, these people fall back on the autonomy of marketplace argument.  (Note the Pope did not say "free market.")

Now the Church specifically rejects democracy as a legitimate form of government, a position I agree with.  But if people assent to a democracy, and charge it with vigilance for the common good, and it does not perform, then it is right to criticize the results.  And this is not only a criticism of those who abuse the system, but the system itself.

To be sure free markets are free of State regulation.    But the free market is hardly free of regulation.  Lex Mercatoria is a non-state, or private, law.  The ICC promulgates the UCC which governs LsC.  No state actors in involved in this critical market function.  SWIFT, the international payment mechanism has no state involvement.  The state is unnecessary to a free market, in fact, mutually exclusive.  But all markets have conventions that the members self impose, and violations are met with shunning, in the measure offense is given.  The diamond market, writ large.

A supra-national, utterly autonomous market system, without any form of control, is tyrannical. And such a system is only possible because the states meant to control them become captured by them.  Obviously what the Pope has in mind here is the banking and oil industries, which fit this description to a T.

Enough for today, the same paragraph has another fascinating observation, which I'll address tomorrow.

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The Problem With Tax Evasion

I have no sympathy for anyone who claims unpaid taxes are some sort of theft from the people, and I would argue for clemency to anyone caught evading taxes.  I don't believe for a second that paying taxes in any way helps anyone or anything.

I am familiar with St Paul's elucidation on this point:

Romans 13:5-7:
• Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor. (NIV)

My objection to the applicability to this is first, we have a republic that has degenerated into a democracy, which is not a legitimate form of government.  And in any case, there is no connection between the tax laws written and our democratic vote.  We vote for peace and get war, we vote for no bailouts and get them anyway, we say no to stadiums but we get them anyway.  The passage above relates to polities ordained by God.  And the only form of government ordained, after great argument, is a kingdom (1 Samuel 8), leaving off the better anarchy.  And the USA is not a kingdom (whereas the Roman Empire was, as was Judea under Herod.)  There is no basis to offer honor, revenue, taxes, respect, etc...   more on that in a second...

But I do try to pay, at outrageous expense, with my tax "obligations" in general, although I am not above putting off a big ticket purchase now if I am going to be in Oregon soon, to save say the $100 in Washington taxes on a purchase in this state.  I cannot remember the last time I've done that (was it the chair?) and the last time I plotted to do this, sometime in October, none of the stores had what I was looking for so I wasted my time.  So I am not nuts about compliance, but probably more compliant than most, for a particular reason.

Also, part of the expense necessary to pay taxes I also take every exemption I can.  Fair is fair.

If I do not pay my taxes, I can hardly complain about them.  It is disingenuous to not pay taxes and claim they are a problem.  If you do not have cholera, cholera is not a problem for you, you cannot claim how hard cholera makes your life.  So to retain my right to complain, I pay the taxes.

Next, by paying the taxes I can say with immediate experience they are outrageous, counterproductive, and unfair.  Further I can demonstrate how they (along with the estate tax) destroy small business.  There is an 800 pound gorilla in the room, and that is how many small businesses cheat on their taxes, and must, to remain competitive against the large businesses that are exempt from taxes, compliments of the progressives who hate small business and fall over each other to outdo billion-dollar tax cuts to one company, Boeing.

Greece, Spain and Italy, and now France, are in trouble because they are just farther along the path.  With a $15 minimum wage plus Romney/Obamacare we'll get there sooner.  Youth unemployment, dying industries, collectivization, we are all going Soviet.  And ultimately, war is the health of the state.

What I advise.  Pay your taxes and go out of business.  Show them.  Of course, there is no safety net for the self-employed, but don't be afraid of the unseen.  You'll have a new perspective, and one that may be brilliant.

I am moved to say this for a particular reason.  I've been talking about the passage in the Bible where even Jesus paid his taxes, when there was zero basis for Him to do so, exactly where we find ourselves in USA today.  He confounded his abusers by asking whose image was on the coin by which taxes are paid, without answering the question. But finally, when it came to another tax, Jesus paid it, after some discussion.  But he performed a miracle to pay it, and while he was at it, covered Peter's tax too.  Why not, if you are going to perform a miracle anyway?  So my meme has been paying your taxes is a miracle anyway, so pay them.

Now a strange thing happened in the last few months.  I had a rather burdensome tax bill, for my sins, on one of those chaotic points built into the tax code that cannot be anticipated.  Nothing new there. The tax code is like a sniper, no one knows who is going to get picked off.  I set up a payment plan to ease the cash flow issues, but chafed at the interest applied, since I am trying to operate usury-free as well.  (Now that is an adventure!)  And let me say, I realize that all of this may very well make people glad they are not self-employed (or better described: customer-employed.)

So what happened?  One day the money was not withdrawn from my account.  This was around the "govt shutdown" so I just figured more weirdness.  But then another month passed, so I inquired, and was told the debt had been paid.  How?  "Could not tell you if I knew." came the answer.  So I asked for and received confirmation that the tax bill is paid (not forgiven or purged or erroneously discharged) but paid.  And I cannot find out why, only that it is.

A miracle?  No doubt there is a profane explanation, but from my point of view, a miracle.  Pay your taxes, even to an illegitimate government.  You can then complain.  You can speak your mind.  And who knows?  There may be a miracle.

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Joy of Gospel Part 3

I can see no one is reading my review of the Joy of the Gospel, but I don't care, I rough draft things on this blog.  And this document is important.

For example, when was the last time you heard this Bible passage quoted:

 “My child, treat yourself well, according to your means… Do not deprive yourself of the day’s enjoyment” (Sir 14:11, 14). 

Rather happy thought.  And listening to atheists argue there is no God, I notice the argument is always cerebral.  And so this was interesting:

“Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction”

Just so.  And being customer-employed, it is about what you do, not what you think.

Indeed, those who enjoy life most are those who leave security on the shore and become excited by the mission of communicating life to others”

What can be more contemporary than the problem of countless right wing Christians trading security for freedom and ending up with neither?  Who bray for more war, more attacks on Moslems, for whom there is never enough blood shed?  For whom human sacrifice is essential, and greet every soldier with "Thank you for your service"?    This quote is in the context of evangelization, but "pre-emptive strike" is not a form of evangelization.

Now, this can seem innocuous, but it is tough:

Each Christian and every community must discern the path that the Lord points out, but all of us are asked to obey his call to go forth from our own comfort zone in order to reach all the “peripheries” in need of the light of the Gospel.

A job is a comfort zone.  Who wants to hear they must go through a discernment process and find out being employed by a company will not do, that one is called to be "customer-employed."  If one proposes to be Christian, this Pope says, then you ought to be Christian.

In today’s world of instant communication and occasionally biased media coverage, the message we preach runs a greater risk of being distorted or reduced to some of its secondary aspects. 

Occasionally biased?  See, the Church teaches to assume the good and endure the tendentious in others, ignore insults, etc.  I have an extremely hard time with that.  If anyone is ever misquoted maliciously, it is Popes.

Now, since business is based on passion and joy, around something you love, where your work is your lifestyle, this becomes relevant:

Works of love directed to one’s neighbour are the most perfect external manifestation of the interior grace of the Spirit: “The foundation of the New Law is in the grace of the Holy Spirit, who is manifested in the faith which works through love”.

Pope Benedict placed small business along with hospitals and schools as works of charity... being in business is about helping others as best you can, in spite of the hateful interference of the State actors.  The Church keeps upping the ante.

And this Pope is holding his crew accountable:

We need to remember that all religious teaching ultimately has to be reflected in the teacher’s way of life, which awakens the assent of the heart by its nearness, love and witness.

And the people...

“God’s mercy has willed that we should be free”

Freedom for and freedom from... that is a big topic... but remember, the Church is a voluntary organization, therefore freedom is essential.

That's all I have time for today, not that anyone is reading this.

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Reviewing the Joy of the Gospel, Part 2

In this second installment in the reading of the Pope’s exhortation, the Joy of the Gospel, I want to clear a few introductory remarks before getting into the document. The politics, the reach and translation problems.

The Politics

I cannot think of a time since Humanae Vitae when a pope’s letter got this much attention.  The right wing has come out deriding the letter, and the left wing is strangely quiet.  For all of his talk of the poor, the left has been waiting to see if this Pope is a leftist, or will come out as such.  I expect hey will soon begin to attack him.  

John Paul II and Benedict both took heat from the left wing for being non-negotiable on women’s ordination and artificial birth control.  Nothing has changed with this Pope in that regard, but his emphasis on social justice has the right wing in a fever.

I rebutted Judge Napolitano’s attack on the Pope’s open letter to the world here, and I heard Rush Limbaugh making the same argument as Napolitano.  So the right wing has its marching orders on this, and yesterday I reviewed an attack of sorts form the left.

The Reach

Americans tend ot think of the Catholic Church as either a foreign entity or an American institution, depending if you are protestant or Catholic.  The Roman church sees itself as part of a Universal church.  In fact, what concrete examples the Pope mentions are from all continents except North America.

The Roman Church traces itself back to Peter, and there are some 30 other catholic churches that trace themselves back to an Apostle, legitimacy found in Apostolic succession in general, and in the case of the Roman rite, Petrine in particular.  Other catholic churches trace their legitimacy back to Andrew, either James, John, Thomas, etc.  All of these churches consider Rome first among equals and are said to be in communion with Rome.  Then there are the schismatic Churches, essentially a political dispute, but still give serious consideration to what the Pope has ot say.  In essence, a Pope always had a wide audience, but this Pope also has a popular audience.

Translation Problems

Vatican documents are usually published in Latin, the language of the Latin Church, and then translated into various languages.  There is a long history of tendentious translating into English, with some documents having to be revised the work is so execrable.  It seems the church has as translators people with a specific agenda.  When Benedict tried to reform the bureaucracy, the eunuchs burned down the treasury, in the form of Vatican-gate.  This Pope is dealing with the bureaucracy by refusing to live with them.  Ouch.

But back to the translation.  As I was reading the document, in English there are many phrases that sound so odd and un-Pope like.  In paragraph 65, in talking about Catholic universities and hospitals, there is the sentence “This is a  good thing.”  Now that is fine as a Martha Stewart signature line, but it is jarring when it shows up in a Papal exhortation.  There are such as this about every three pages.  I was going to have a Latin scholar I have on retainer translate paragraph 65 from the original Latin, only to find in this case the original is in Spanish, this Pope’s first language.  So even I can make out the Spanish, and here is the sentence from the Spanish version

Es muy bueno que así sea.

I guess so, although “This is very good.” would be my rough translation, as opposed to the Martha meme.   My plan was to find something tendentious on a  superficial level (all I can handle) to make a point the translation was sloppy.

But more perspicacious minds are onto this problem, and here is the research of one blogger regarding the notorious paragraph 54, the paragraph that has the right wing apoplectic.

Let us assume that the original composition was Spanish:
54. En este contexto, algunos todavía defienden las teorías del «derrame», que suponen que todo crecimiento económico, favorecido por la libertad de mercado, logra provocar por sí mismo mayor equidad e inclusión social en el mundo. 

Official English…
In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world.
Over at the other post a commentator pointed out that the official English rendering of EG 54 makes Spanish “por si’ mismo” into “inevitably”, but that it really means “by itself”. 

Let’s swap in the “by itself” and read it again.
In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories ["trickle down economics"] which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will by itself succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world.
There is a big difference between “inevitably” and “by itself”! 

There are uses of “mismo” that have to do with time, such as “ahora mismo” (“right now”).  This is not one of those. 

I think we can stipulate that “las teorías del «derrame»” is an adequate expression for English “trickle down” economics.  We can drill, I suppose, into who generally uses the phrase “trickle down”.  Some will say that only critics use the phrase.  Let’s leave that aside.  Also, I am not convinced that “justice and inclusiveness” does justice to “equidad e inclusión social”.  ”Equidad” is not “justice”. 

But the real point here is that in EG 54 the author says that “trickle down” economics cannot by itself produce the desired result. 

That is, of course, correct.  

Just so.  And Equidad is simply equity, as in equity and inclusion, as in a fair shake and participation.  So in this critical translation, we’ll probably see some improvements over time, and perhaps some heads knocked around in the Vatican translation office.

Mistranslation is a form of resistance.  Straw man arguments, such as is coming from the right wing,  and as I pointed out yesterday, a straw boy argument coming from the left wing.  Why does anyone care?  For there reasons stated above, this guy will have an impact, and he is being pushed ot see if he will push back, to get his measure.  This reminds me of a story:

And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him.  Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones.  And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him.  And crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” 

These dangerous people, the left and right wing are confronting someone who has power over them.

 For he was saying to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!”  And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.”  And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country.  

The time will come when they try to negotiate with this Pope.

Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside,  and they begged him, saying, “Send us to the pigs; let us enter them.”  So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea.

Whole lotta squealin' goin on, when even pigs want nothing to to with the possessors.

The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country. And people came to see what it was that had happened.  And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid.

Naturally, the powers that be do not like improvement, since it upsets their status quo.  We all love a system that works for us.

And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and to the pigs.  And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region.

Who knows what else the man might do?  (Two thousand pigs would represent sizable wealth in those times, gained how?  Was some sort of equitable adjustment take place, where in a moment defrauded swineherds had the value of their herd increase by the bad fellows loss? You have to go to Heaven to get the rest of that story.)

As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him. And he did not permit him but said to him, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.

The possessed are guilty of their possession, so to be exorcised is a mercy. In this short story we see Jesus get out of a boat, deal with people, get back in and sail away.

The powers that be and their talking heads are challenging this pope, who are you, what do you want?  This document makes it clear enough, to the politicians and progressives and crony capitalists, even with the translation problems.  They are already rejecting this message.  When they see the power of it, what deal will they negotiate?  And where will that lead?

Oink.      Splash.

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Taxing Government Pensions

The time will come when it is necessary to renege on the pensions promised to government workers.  This is no problem conceptually, because governments regularly renege on everything.  And as a matter of justice, there is no issue reneging on a conspiracy wherein two parties agreed to ripping off a third party, who had no idea what was going on.  No one who is paying for these pensions agreed to these pensions.  Before we adopt Mish's proposal

I propose something along the lines of "taxing pension benefits above a specified amount at 80%, taken straight out of the check". The "specified amount" would be determined based on what it takes to make the system actuarially sound in a reasonable timeframe (say 15 years).

I have another idea, which covers a problem Mish does not mention.  Those people who double and triple dipped into the system.  Sticking with the 80% tax on anything above a living wage, something these folks are always talking about, and a 100% tax on all other pensions a person might have, let's leave in a proviso that allows them to invest this money in a business, under the current IRS rules.

I am reminded of how George McGovern, upon opening a Bed & Breakfast in his retirement, was astonished at how pointlessly difficult the state made life for small business.  So upon retirement, the people who made life difficult are obliged to join us or lose it.

This new army would be spending their pensions directly with other business people who were providing the businesses with goods and services.  Two things would happen, these people would communicate to their past minions how horrible life is after retirement in which you actually have to serve other people.

In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the dead rich man wanted to warn his fellows, but it was too late.  Right now we could set up a system where the use-it-in-business-or-lose-it pensioners were communicating in a direct and lively manner the problems we face given the "get-big-or-get-ut" imperative policy at all levels of government.

We then would no doubt see another parable play out, where the abusive task masters in government would be busy going around and rewriting codes to make life easier for them when they meet their pensioned fate.

The pensions are now forfeit, since they cannot be met.  The question is how to creatively renege on the false promises.

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World Trade Steady

World Trade is chugging along, about level the last two years, in spite of the economic conditions deteriorating...  more here...



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Why Pope Francis’ “Joy of the Gospel” Is Important to You

Who cares about what some Pope named Francis has got to say?  Especially when he writes a letter that is no more than a outline of his game plans.  Think of a new coach who has made the measure of his team and the competition they will play against, and comes up with his game plan for how he will play as long as he is coach.  That is all this letter is.

But something is going on.  These times are different. The iron is hot, and depending on how it is struck we’ll have the shape of things to come.  This Pope is different.  He has decided to strip down, lather up, and wade into the fight.  He is striking while this iron is hot. Stalin sneered at the Pope’s lack of military divisions, but Gorbachev found out what the Pope’s armies can do.

I’ve read the letter.  It is an amazing document, and it is very easy to misread, willfully or unwittingly, as I pointed out in my rebuttal to Judge Napolitano.  There are also translation problems.

Rush Limbaugh has attacked the letter in the same way Napolitano has, so we know the tack of the right wingers.  The left wing has been rather silent, but here comes another tactic: embrace and extend.  

This writer,David Simon, does not mention the Pope’s letter, but his article tracks the letter as it  mentions points the Pope mentions.  So in this case, we have an implicit agreement of the Pope's letter but he takes what the Pope teaches somewhere that the Pope has not gone.

David Simon and I agree in a way on Marx, the way I would put it is Marx has his facts right, but his policies are bad.  Simon goes on to decry Marx for “platitudes” about the state withering away, etc.

What wrong with the state withering away?

The word trickle down is very 1980s, so I was surprised to read it in the Pope’s document.  Here it is again.

Ultimately we abandoned that and believed in the idea of trickle-down and the idea of the market economy and the market knows best, to the point where now libertarianism in my country is actually being taken seriously as an intelligent mode of political thought. It's astonishing to me. But it is. People are saying I don't need anything but my own ability to earn a profit. I'm not connected to society. I don't care how the road got built, I don't care where the firefighter comes from, I don't care who educates the kids other than my kids. I am me. It's the triumph of the self. I am me, hear me roar.

That may be what libertinism says, but not libertarianism.  Libertarians say there is a better way than force and fraud to provide for fire suppression, roads, education.  So Simon is as dishonest here as his TV show.

This is just greed. This is an inability to see that we're all connected, that the idea of two Americas is implausible, or two Australias, or two Spains or two Frances.

(Frances?  As in Pope Francis?)  Why?  Don't we have a split Israel?  Two Koreas?   Don't we have that in USA with the Indian reservations. although to genocidal purpose?  In China, one country, two systems we have, with much better results.  So why is what actually works implausible to socialists?

The idea is not implausible, since the only solution is to break the leviathan up what is failing.  Simon wants a North Korean state, and the rest want something more liberal, and some of us want a Hong Kong.

And so in my country you're seeing a horror show. You're seeing a retrenchment in terms of family income, you're seeing the abandonment of basic services, such as public education, functional public education. You're seeing the underclass hunted through an alleged war on dangerous drugs that is in fact merely a war on the poor and has turned us into the most incarcerative state in the history of mankind, in terms of the sheer numbers of people we've put in American prisons and the percentage of Americans we put into prisons. No other country on the face of the Earth jails people at the number and rate that we are.

Odd he leaves out the targeting in these liberal programs of people of some African heritage.  The big beneficiary of these programs are the state employees.

I'm utterly committed to the idea that capitalism has to be the way we generate mass wealth in the coming century. That argument's over. But the idea that it's not going to be married to a social compact, that how you distribute the benefits of capitalism isn't going to include everyone in the society to a reasonable extent, that's astonishing to me.

No, the argument regarding capitalism is not over.  Capitalism with redistribution is the problem today, that which Simon is advocating.  The redistributing part of capitalism is how we get crony capitalism, which results in all of the horrors Simon catalogs.  Simon has not advocated for any change, but then he directly benefits from the status quo.  We all love a system that works for us.

The idea that the market will solve such things as environmental concerns, as our racial divides, as our class distinctions, our problems with educating and incorporating one generation of workers into the economy after the other when that economy is changing; the idea that the market is going to heed all of the human concerns and still maximise profit is juvenile.

This is a straw man since, at least in the 40 years I’ve been reading economics, no one says the market is a solution to all problems.  So this is another straw man argument, or straw boy in this case.

If you watched the debacle that was, and is, the fight over something as basic as public health policy in my country over the last couple of years, imagine the ineffectiveness that Americans are going to offer the world when it comes to something really complicated like global warming. We can't even get healthcare for our citizens on a basic level.

Thank God for that. What you call healthcare for the poor I call death panels for the poor.  And global warming is a hoax, so I truly do not want to solve that problem that does not exist.

And here is the problem: the contradictions are not negotiable, there is no room for compromise in Simon’s view, and nor on the other side.  That split is necessary to save the peace and prosperity.  Let Simon and his ilk have the Northeast, and let freedom come to the south west, and anarchy to the northwest, and we’ll watch Simon's tribe become like North Korea.

Like Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela has been captured by Hollywood and the west is scrambling to hide his message.  He moved from embracing terrorism to truth commissions, and amazing change.  With truth commissions, and more facts out, the pretenses of the David Simons of the world are deflated.  Then there can be movement toward unification,or at least some sort of modus vivendi.

The document the Pope wrote is remarkable in many ways, and I’ll break up my review over several days.  I recommend you read it.

Paragraphs 98 to 175, about 1/3rd regards an attitude shift relating to preaching the Gospel, so it an be skipped if you are looking for what is applicable outside the church, as opposed to inside.

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47% of 18 -29 Year Olds Would Vote to Recall Obama?

After I wrote a blogpost complaining about how the quality of hand can openers had gone downhill in this economic downturn, I reflected on how much I sounded like the crotchety old men of my youth.  They would say things like defeat "medicare, or we'll end up with the government in charge of medicine!  Keep us on the gold standard!  Or we'll fall into poverty!"  The young just laughed, and the majority who want a king to fight their battles for them just went along.

Well, those oldsters were right.

Seymour Hirsch has a backstory regarding the Syria "crisis" las summer which shows what only the USA people were not supposed to hear, and that is the rebels we support were by far the most likely to have lobbed the sarin gas, and it is almost impossible for Assad to have done so.  We are so ill served by our government and press.  That Kerry and Obama were playing fast a loose with info is appalling, when war was at stake.

I am convinced that Obama was run to reach the disaffected liberal base in 2008, and then the four years of new youth voters in 2012.  Mission accomplished.  How come?

The reason is that in a confidence game is it critical to instill confidence in the mark.  Mamet lays this out well in his movie the House of Games.  Obamacare is a scam in which the oldsters are supposed to welcome the youngsters being mulcted for "free medical care."  The youngsters are supposed to be excited about this prospect, since they too will get better care for cheaper.  Yay!  The bet here is the young are very stupid.

Mish highlighted an article that shows  47% of 18-29 year olds today would vote to recall Obama.  49% think we are on the wrong track.  57% disapprove of Obama as president and 56% disapprove of the affordable care act, and some 45% say they will not sign up.

Whole lotta civil disobedience ahead.

These are the numbers based on the execrable rollout of he ACA. Romeny/Obamacare supporters assure everyone that once it is up and working, everyone will love it.   OK...  what if that too turns out to be as false as every other Federal promise, such as Assad launched the attack?

In the meantime it is clear that the better care in USA is being systematically excised for only the elite, for example, Seattle Childrens Hospital is excluded, just as the elite in countries with single-payer health care come to USA, from say Canada, the UK, etc for health care.

Then where will those numbers go?  Then where will people go to fix a system that has been through a blender?



This does not look good for the State and its minions.

Better get self-employed so you can get your own healthcare.

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Lunch

The glass of Rose' may be controversial, but this is what I call lunch.  This is actually research, pairing the wine with the crab with a view to a preliminary assessment as to rose with crab, for an export market.

Your lifestyle is your work when you are customer-employed.  Your work is your lifestyle...

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A Good Cause

If you are looking for a place to make a Christmas donation, Haiti is still suffering, and donating to plant coffee trees in Haiti makes for a donation that never quits.

I know the people involved so I kicked in a bit, and I recommend them to you.  Click here....

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Car Exports Scam

China Daily needs to tighten up its fact checking.  It has a story on gray market luxury vehicles into China from USA:

"As wealth (in China) has increased, the volume of gray market" - or illegal - "luxury vehicle exports has increased," Tim Dunne, director of global automotive operations at California market-research firm JD Power and Associates, told China Daily in an interview. "It's a big business."

No it is not.  Nothing illegal there.  Gray market is not illegal. No crime committed.  And as I understand it JD Power is where the auto industry goes to buy the opinions it wants, they are not an independent source of information.

The schemes can cause big financial problems for US dealers, who are contractually prohibited from selling new vehicles to anyone who intends to export them and can be penalized by the automakers for doing so - even if they do so unwittingly, the automotive-industry news website reported.
Dealerships that sell to exporters may be forced to pay charge-backs, have incentives revoked and receive fewer vehicles from the factory in the future, according to an article on the website. Fraudulent registrations also hurt dealerships that do not sell to exporters because such registrations understate the dealerships' actual market shares, making it appear they are falling short of sales targets, the article said. That can affect bonuses paid by automakers as well as future allocations.

But causing inconvenience to others is not a crime.

Steps must be taken "to ensure that vehicles produced and equipped for the US market are sold to end consumers in the US and not operated in areas for which they were not designed or certified", she wrote.

This is a problem for the buyers, not for Mercedes benz.

Automakers place restrictions on where their vehicles can be sold so they can appropriately manage their regional production and distribution plans, protect their brand reputations, manage their pricing, and protect their dealer franchisees by guaranteeing them a sales territory that other dealers are not allowed to enter.

"Appropriately manage" contrary to customers demands.

Traders "play by different rules with a different set of responsibilities than dealers, and dealers are prohibited by their franchise agreements from playing the trader's game," he said.

How about Mercedes get in  the business of selling Mercedes?  Mercedes is complying with USA laws that benefit car dealers and harm car buyers.  Why doesn't Merecedes work to restore a free market in USA so they can make money the way these enterprising Chinese are making money?

"Dealers are the face-to-face conduit between the automaker's brand and the customer, so automakers depend on their dealers to satisfy customers in order to create good will, create repeat customers for the brand, and spread word-of-mouth recommendations about the brand," the analyst said. "Many authorized dealers get financially rewarded by automakers for keeping customers satisfied."

There is no crime here, just inconvenience to Mercedes exploiting USA enforcement of USA rules.  And enforcement, you will notice, you and I are oblige to fund.  Anyone who is successful in business gains envy from those in the same business who are not successful.  This is just envy talking.

Dunne said, "that traders don't meet the customers face-to-face, are not responsible for maintenance or repair vehicles when they need it, and are not responsible for making sure customers are happy if they have any problems with their vehicles".

And the buyers know this.

At the heart of the crime is an effort to prey on the craving by Chinese for automobiles that convey that the newly wealthy buyer has reached the pinnacle.

This is dishonest.  There is no crime here.  The Chinese buyers, the uber-wealthy, are hardly victims being preyed upon.  This is piling on advocacy.

The crimes committed have nothing to do with cars:

John Kacavas, the U.S. attorney for New Hampshire, recently announced that two California men pleaded guilty to federal mail fraud charges and violations of U.S. customs laws, in what officials say was the first successful prosecution of a major vehicle-exporting operation. The defendants admitted to scheming to export 93 vehicles worth more than $5.5 million that they and others bought in 16 states

Mail fraud is a crime, and falsifying export documents is a crime.  You can buy and sell cars on the gray market without committing these crimes.

Straw buyers are not committing fraud, since they cannot given their position.  The real buyers are not making any such representations, so they are not liable.  Wire fraud is a crime, so a but a fed prosecutor should not try to buyer fake crimes in a real crime.  If someone can get around the rules, change the rules if you can.  Don't punish people who comply with the rules as stated.

Here is a real crime in auto exporting:  a gang that stole cars, falsified papers and exported them.  In 10% of the thefts, the cars were acquired by carjacking!  Yikes... that is pretty violent.

The auto companies say:

Auto makers say their no-export provisions are needed to ensure that cars are sold with the proper equipment and warranties for the country where they'll be driven. And they say they are entitled to set prices differently in different markets.

Of course they are, but that does not mean people must not work around their price-fixing.  Price fixing is usually illegal, except in the auto industry, and this is a perfect example of the free market responding to manufacturers abusing their customers.

An auto dealer once told me that BMW closely watches the resale value of their cars in USA and exports used cars to Mexico to keep the resale value and brand image up in USA.

The U.S. alleges that Erxin Zhou and Yifan Kong used money from a tire business to fund the purchase and export of 2,000 luxury cars—worth more than $80 million in the U.S.—to China last year. Their goal for this year was 3,000, according to the government's complaint. The couple hasn't been charged with a crime, but some of their company's assets were seized in October by the U.S.

Of course they are not charged with a crime, because there is no crime.  Now, assets may have been seized in anticipation of finding some wire fraud or customs exdec violations,  but that is a different problem.

OK... now we get to the point:

The renewed focus on illicit export practices comes amid accusations in China of automakers jacking up prices and sowing discord between dealers and auto makers. In August, China's Ministry of Commerce said it would move to change rules governing vehicle sales in the world's largest auto market. A ministry spokesman said the move could include limiting automakers' power to demand a deposit from dealers, which would give local dealers more freedom over the vehicles they sell.
This week, China's auto lobby fiercely opposed a possible move by Beijing to ease restrictions on foreign ownership in the car industry, saying that the move would seriously weaken the position of indigenous carmakers.
Dong Yang, secretary general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), said that if foreign ownership rules were relaxed, Chinese carmakers would lose control of joint ventures they now own and run jointly with global automakers.

We have the Chinese automakers trying to install a managed market in China like we have in USA.  These prosecutions in USA are directed at a political end, as usual.  C'est la vie.

Now, let's look at the real story, by going stright to the raw trade numbers.  I am the only source ofr ten digit analysis, all of the paid services only analyze at the four or six digit level, which might offer some macro-trends, but we need nitty gritty info upon which to act... so ten digit Sch B numbers when analyzing exports....  so here is part of my new car export analysis, over 3000 cc and six or more cylinders...

Source Data - USITC - John Wiley Spiers Analysis

So these are all new, USA made luxury cars, prices ranging from 35K to 50K.  Do know that BMWs and Mercedes are made in USA as well, so exports thereof are exports of USA cars. That's the law.

And here is the same thing, but used cars:

Source Data - USITC - John Wiley Spiers Analysis

So what do you see?  USA exports of used cars to China bring a price that is the same as new cars,or even as much as 25% higher.  And then note, in used cars, Hong Kong shows up, of course, since Hong Kong is a great facilitator of getting things into China, but look a the prices...  Hong Kong traders always know how to get the best deals.  There are other factors I will not go into, but here is the hard facts.  (If you want me to send you the data analysis spread sheets here, email me with you preferecne as to pc or mac versions, or for that matter, .pdf version...

Also, remember the carjacking and export ring mentioned above?  Mostly exported to Africa.  See the prices on the used cars shipped to Nigeria?  All under $10,000 about 1/3rd the going rate?  These are the same luxury cars, but prices rather low?  I am guessing no one in law enforcement noticed this because no one looked.  Since the ringleader was arrest in 2012, it will be interesting to see what the exports to Nigeria look like in 2013.

Bottom line is if you want to arbitrage the price between a BMW in USA and China, do so and make your money, just do it legally by filling out the forms correctly and complying with the law.  You are not bound by maker-dealer agreements after you own the car.  Gray market is not illegal, it just fills a need where manufacturers get greedy.

Every business has its problems, but always comply with the rules.  The alternative is just not worth it.  Money is not that important.

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